Peter Rhodes on internet lies, knocking 20 years off your age and a piper at dawn

CULTURE corner. A reader tells me that Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities was first published in instalments in two Midland newspapers. It was the Bicester Times and it was the Worcester Times.

I DELETE all the ads that pop up with my BT Yahoo email. But you can't simply bin them. You must first explain why you don't like them. I list them all as "offensive." And once you start looking for offence, how easy it is to find it. I am offended by adverts from banks, energy companies, solar-power firms, Viagra firms, Virgin Games, OAP travel companies and Specsavers. Why delete them? Because BT/Yahoo promises: "We'll review your feedback and make changes as needed." Lying toads. I deleted one ad which reappeared two more times within a minute. And I see the Viagra ad has just raised its ugly head again . . .

THERE is a serious point to all this. It is that in the internet age, the big players seem to have absolutely no conscience about telling whoppers.

UP at 4.30am and over to Warwick for an appointment with a piper at the gates of dawn. At 6am precisely he was one of 2,000 pipers greeting Armistice Day across Britain. I love the sound of bagpipes. It is a curious musical fact that any melody, no matter how jolly, can be made instantly mournful by blowing it through a sheep's bladder. We adjourned to the church where the piper played soldiers' songs. I have never before sat in a place of worship and joined in lusty choruses of Tipperary and Goodbye, Dolly Gray. This congregation included a few small children who, given today's life expectancy, may carry this memory of Armistice 100 into the 22nd century. History is not as distant and long-lost as we sometimes think. I once interviewed a soldier of the Great War who, as a lad, knew an old chap in his village who proudly wore his father's war medal. It was the 1815 Waterloo Medal. History? It's just over your shoulder.

RESEARCH shows that many hybrid vehicles bought as company cars have not been used in the petrol-saving electricity mode. No surprises there. How many company drivers have access to overnight charging points? And how many can claim back the cost of petrol or diesel? Where's the incentive to go electric? So the company executives enjoy their shiny new hybrid SUVs while the rest of us subsidise them. As I wrote over a year ago: "These vehicles are made 'affordable' for the well-heeled, thanks to taxes of people who will never be able to afford them. This is like Robin Hood in reverse gear."

A DUTCHMAN aged 69 says he is in "great shape" and his biological age is 20 years younger. He wants a court to allow him to register officially as aged 49. It occurs to me that some mornings I wake up feeling 100, so can I have a telegram from the Queen?